Photo: Arhiva Grada Dubrovnik
MATO FRANKOVIĆ
ACI Marina Dubrovnik has the greatest potential on the entire Adriatic coast
The Croatian far south has its own tourist magnet – Dubrovnik. However, apart from the city, there are also the Elaphite Islands, which leave all our visitors breathless; fine cuisine and the clear sea are essentially what a boater seeks on his or her journey. Within 50 nautical miles there are so many historical adventures, from Dubrovnik to Ston and all the way to Korčula, so it is difficult to resist this part of the Croatian coast.
Mato Franković was born on 23 February 1982. He finished primary school in Ponikve on the Pelješac Peninsula, and attended the Secondary School of Economics in Dubrovnik for three years. He then continued his education in the United States, where he completed his fourth year through an international student exchange programme. Having returned to the Republic of Croatia, he enrolled at Rochester Institute of Technology and obtained an Associate in Applied Science degree. In 2003, he started working at the Generalturist travel agency, where he climbed his way up from an airport operative to the head of operations and all the way to the head of a branch office, regional director, and the director of the Lanta Generalturist subsidiary. In 2009, he became the director of ACI Marina Dubrovnik. In the last seven years of his management, ACI Marina Dubrovnik won 7 best marina awards in the middle-sized marina category, and its financial results were the highest within the ACI marina chain in the last 5 years. At the regular electoral convention of the Croatian National Tourist Board held in 2016, Franković was elected member of the CNTB’s Tourist Council, the so-called tourist government. He accepted a big new challenge in 2017, when he was elected mayor of Dubrovnik.
Dubrovnik has been breaking records in the number of visitors for years. How big is the share of boaters in it?
Unfortunately, unlike other cities, Dubrovnik still cannot boast of its great success in nautical tourism. The reason for this is exclusively the shortage of berths in the waters of Dubrovnik, but also an insufficient number of marinas in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County.
For many years you were the director of ACI Marina Dubrovnik and the regional boating coordinator for South Adriatic. In your opinion, what are the main boating advantages of this part of Croatia and why does it have such an allure for guests?
The Croatian far south has its own tourist magnet – Dubrovnik. However, apart from the city, there are also the Elaphite Islands, which leave all our visitors breathless; fine cuisine and the clear sea are essentially what a boater seeks on his or her journey. When you think that within 50 nautical miles there are so many historical adventures, from Dubrovnik to Ston and all the way to Korčula, combined with, as I said, fine cuisine, as well as beautiful bays, it is difficult to resist this part of the Croatian coast.